[Nottingham] Smart meters

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 09:52:28AM +0100, Jason Irwin wrote:
> Either way, you're going to have one by 2017.

I welcome it since otherwise my meter does not get read.

On Monday I noticed that my electricity meter hadn't ever been read
by British Gas since the account was opened last October, and all
bills to date had been based upon estimated figures.

I went out to take a real reading and found that my meter was dead.

So now they are going to replace it (hopefully with a "smart
meter"), but they are still wanting to use the estimated reading
they have for the basis of the new meter's reading.

I have objected to this since I don't think it's appropriate to bill
me based on 10 months of estimates and zero real readings, so we are
now in dispute.

Fortunately I already have a CurrentCost¹ myself so I have some
record of roughly what my usage was. Their estimate overcharges me
for around £122 across the 10 months.

Considering they are basing their estimate on the only info they
took from me—a two person household with two bedrooms, gas heating
and gas cooker—without me mentioning the 5 computers and 12 disk
fileserver that's always one, the fact that they have still managed
to *over*estimate suggests that their estimation algorithm is
heavily biased in their favour.

Cheers,
Andy

¹ http://www.currentcost.com/

-- 
> I'd be interested to hear any (even two word) reviews of their sofas…
Provides seating.
 — Andy Davidson